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The Cardinals finished up minicamp — and the entirety of their offseason on-field work — today a little early, with coach Ken Whisenhunt giving his players the added bonus of calling off the final gassers just as they lined up to run them.

“I am excited to start in training camp and picking up where we left off,” Whisenhunt said.

The message to the team? Don’t go backwards. “We’ve made progress,” Whisenhunt told the players. “I don’t know how much progress, and we still have a ways to go, but the important thing is that we don’t take a step backwards.”

There will be players around working out, but many will scatter for their chunk of off-time. Training camp report day is July 24.

— Whisenhunt said he fully expects RB Ryan Williams (patella tendon) to be ready for the start of training camp although the team will be smart about it. RB Beanie Wells (knee) hopefully will be ready too. “He’s got to work himself back to being ready,” Whisenhunt said of Wells. “We’ve done the right thing with Beanie as far as the offseason and making sure he is healthy. He’s got to bust his tail the next few weeks to be ready for training camp because some guys have looked good there.”

Whiz said he isn’t concerned about his rehabbing runners, though.

— TE Jeff King (partial quad tear) will probably be handled with kid gloves even if he is cleared for the start of camp. “But don’t tell him that,” Whisenhunt quipped.

— Whisenhunt said the Cards focused on their offensive system during the offseason work, as opposed to tweaking it a lot. “It was up and down the first couple of weeks of OTAs, but you really started to see it the last couple of weeks and especially last night,” he said.

My Thoughts on the fan fest. I dont think Bidwell knew how many ppl were going to be there. Way to crowded at some spots. Kolb threw the ball in the dirt three times and overthrew larry twice. Skelton did none of those. Floyd made some nice catches as well and Williams mad a couple cuts that were pretty fierce.

I saw a Sporting News blurb that made mention of fans booing Kevin Kolb last night. The writer made mention of you in the piece, but didn’t attribute the assertion of booing to you. In fact, that’s the only place I’ve heard of it, and it wasn’t even clear that he himself was present. Anything to what he said?

Hi Darren, nice article as always. Do you think that the cards might pick up another rb for the preseason so they can rest Williams,Beanie and Hypen to save them for the regular season? I don’t see why they would play them more than a couple of snaps in the final preseason game to let them get comfortable getting tackled. Risk reward just isn’t there. Or do you think Smith and James will just split the 20 to 30 carries a game to right it out for the last spot?

Really excited about the way the team is shaping up and the direction we seem to be going with Mr. Mike Bidwill being proactive in getting up before a national audience. The Booing incident was unfortunate but I remember Kurt Warner also being booed so, and other than being fodder for the sports tabloids, it has no significance. I’m really getting excited for the Hall of Fame game with the Saints which is really more for fun and exhibition than to be taken seriously. Talking to friends at a party last night I was surprised at the comments by people watching the Brees coountdown with folks seeing him a good fit with our Cards; maybe I talk in my sleep but I thought that was my personal dream…LOL! I think the points is that a lot of people are now recognizing the Cards as young up and comers where players like Payton Manning want to go.
Fanfest was poorly organized but still a huge hit and will be better every year. Obviously, the organization didn’t expect such a crowd but the fact that there were more people than expected should be encouraging. GREAT JOB AND THANK YOU. GO CARDS…WE DO THIS TOGETHER!

Hi Darren,
First time blogging or whatever thus is,been a fan since 88′ and it is funny to me how much it seems like people still over look AZ like us being a good team was a fluke those years and we are back where we should be. Remeber “wWORST TEAM EVER IN THE PLAYOFFS, SHOULD OF TAKING ANOTHER TEAM FROM THE SOUTH”.
This team was 3 plays from being a playoff team last yr. 1) the fumble that wasnt againsr N.Y, 2) all of the 4Q leads blown and dude falling in the endzone on 4th down in K.c. I just think we are going to be big this yr even with the TOUGH ASS SCHEDUAL, HOW does that work out anyway, NE,DET,GB in nov in lambo iI mean damn. wait for your thought hthanks as always,
Jeremie Thomas